I'll be finalizing the rankings for Parts 3 - 5, with MJ coming back for the RHP. Second base isn't particularly deep in the AL East Under-26 grouping, with our top-rated player still profiling best as a utility guy at this point.

Rodriguez is a bat first utility man that fits best as a second baseman in a full-time role. Similar to Brandon Wood, Rodriguez boasts an above-average raw power tool with limited in-game value at the Major League level until he shows an ability to improve his contact rate (in 216 plate appearances he has picked-up 62 strikeouts -- or 28.7%). Also like Wood, there is little left for Rodriguez to accomplish at the AAA level, posting consecutive seasons of over 1.000 OPS in '08 and '09, while hitting a total of 51 homeruns in that same period.

Defensively, Rodriguez is the definition of average. He has limited range and just enough athleticism to turn adequate pivots. His arm strength plays best at the four-spot. With Zobrist in place at second, Rodriguez could compete for a utility spot, along with fellow middle-infielder Reid Brignac. His shortcomings in the strikeout department are tied more to an inability to control the strikezone than any issues with bat speed or holes. At this point, he'll just need to get the reps and either sink or swim. The potential is there for an average-fielding, 6-hole bat with some pop.

Adams was one of our favorite middle-infield targets in the 2008 draft, potentially providing Top 50 value out of the late third round. The former UVA Cavalier has taken his professional approach at the plate at the college ranks and transitioned well to the low-minors. Thus far, he's walked in a little over 10% of his professional plate appearances, posting just 1.5 strikeouts per base-on-balls. Adams has a lot of moving parts in his swing, and it remains to be seen whether or not it will continue to play at the upper-levels. A reasonable projection has Adams carving-out a career as a solid average regular, with no spectacular tools but enough defensive value to make a .750-775 OPS playable out of the bottom-third of the order. There is top-of-the-order upside if Adams shows enough gap-to-gap pop to force upper-level pitching to respect him (if not, his plate discipline will be negated by pitchers coming right at him looking for weak contact).

Despite an unimpressive slash line of .253/.336/.376, Emaus turned in an encouraging performance at AA/New Hampshire in 2009. The first positive sign was his ability to maintain the near 1:1 SO:BB ratio he'd posted the prior year at A-Adv./Dunedin, while again walking in over 10% of his plate appearances. The second positive sign was that his linedrive, fly ball and ground ball percentages were each almost identical to previous year, while he saw a heavy dip in his BABIP of almost 50 points (.050). This could indicate that his 2009 slash line was negatively impacted by a disproportionate amount of poor luck on batted balls. This is somewhat backed-up by his solid showing in the Arizona Fall League (.317/.391/.417), albeit in just under 70 plate appearances. Defensively, Emaus will struggle to maintain average production, due to his limited range and athleticism. He'll be one to watch in 2010, as we look to see if his offensive production bounces back along with his BABIP. He could get a shot at Toronto as an end-of-the-season call-up if all goes well.

Turner (pictured) projected as a utility man at the start of 2009 and a solid, if unspectacular, season did little to change that. Turner continues to show an excellent understanding of the strikezone (34 BB/37 SO over 441 PA), while employing a semi-aggressive approach at the plate. He shows little in the way of usable power and will rely almost exclusively on OBP to provide offensive value at the ML-level. As mentioned above with regards to Adams, Turner will need to show enough gap-to-gap pop to make pitchers respect him, and if he does his solid footwork and range in the field should be enough to complete the picture. At best, Turner could be a serviceable regular at second base for a non-tier-one club. At worst, he tops out as a AAAA bat just shy of enough strength for his offensive approach to translate.

Derrik Gibson (Boston Red Sox) was also considered for this spot. A solid showing at Short-season Lowell was enough to put him on our watch list, but he's too far away to rank ahead of the four others mentioned above.

16 January 2010

With John Sickels completing his preliminary offseason prospect rankings(NL, AL), we are able to generate a tiered prospect ranking list. I compiled this one from his Grades A, A-, B+, and B; which brings us to a total of 119 prospects. Looking at our Shadow Draft system, we seemed to have done pretty well.

Remember that the ratings on the website may not be the final ones in his guide, but they are relatively close. His site can be difficult to maneuver, so I have provided the listings for his ratings for the National League and American League for your convenience. This may be helpful to look at when proposing mock trades or analyzing actual ones. It may also help comparing the Orioles' system to others. Enjoy.

15 January 2010

As we occasionally have done in the past and now planning to do more so in the future, we like to interview other individuals who run exciting and rather informative websites that we think you should check out. Scouting the Sally is one of them.

Mike Newman is the founder of the site. He began it after coming to the realization just how much talent comes through the league. In the past four years, talents such as Ben Zobrist, Gaby Hernandez, Alcides Escobar, Hunter Pence, Gio Gonzalez, Phil Hughes, Carlos Carasco, Brandon Erbe, Mat Gamel, Fernando Martinez, Elvis Andrus, Jose Tabata, Austin Jackson, Kyle Drabek, Chris Coghlan, Logan Morrison, Desmond Jennings . . . I can go on and on. The shear number of current and future MLB talent that went through this league was staggering and presented Mike with an opportunity to provide in-depth analysis on a low minors league that is rich in relevance to Major League Baseball. His site provides easy access to some of the most detailed first hand scouting reports and videos on Sally prospects. His main goals for his site are to build up networking and communication through media and professional baseball.

Mike's background also helps provide some credit to his work. He played college baseball on the D1/2 and JuCo levels and spent some time working in professional baseball at AA. He then spent several years coaching high school baseball in Florida before devoting himself to his family. Baseball gnawed at him though and he has now decided to use Scouting the Sally as an outlet, which is much to everyone's benefit who is interested in low minors prospects. Mike's clear, descriptive reports are an excellent tool in getting a first read on a player you have seen (or haven't seen enough) or to cross check your own analysis of a player.

After the jump, I ask Mike about his thoughts on Joe Jordan, LJ Hoes, Xavier Avery, and his future plans for the site.

Crawdaddy: What are your general impressions of the talent that Joe Jordan is introducing into the Orioles system as it passes through Delmarva? How does it compare to other teams?

Mike Newman: Delmarva was down in 2009. They didn't have anything in terms of impact talent; especially on the pitching staff. I'm excited about the 2010 team as Hobgood, Givens, and Bundy would be a fun trio to scout. Overall, I'm impressed with how the organization has drafted over the past couple of years. I know people bashed the Hobgood signing, but it freed up more money to go overslot on a handful of players which builds the organizational depth they are lacking just a bit.

CD: After a promising rookie ball campaign, LJ Hoes statistically took a step back in the SAL. What is your report on him? What do you think his projection is?

MN: Hoes seems to have lost a step or two and his lower body is becoming too large for my liking. He's not nearly as sleek as he used to be and may have to move off of second base at some point. If this happens, it tanks his prospect value as he doesn't have the bat to profile as adequate at the corners. I like his bat speed through the zone, but he's is not going to project for much power.

CD: Similarly, what is your report on Xavier Avery?

MN: Avery had an excellent two-strike approach and understood his limitations on the field. He worked ground balls back up the middle and used his legs which was good to see. The question will be whether or not he can develop enough pop to keep fielders honest as I see little power potential. His glove is a bit of a question mark at this point. He can cover a ton of ground, but I question his route running and every fly ball seems to be an adventure.

CD: What future plans do you have for yourself and Scouting the Sally?

MN: Right now I'm just having a blast making connections in baseball and hearing from readers around the country. The next obvious step would be to rebuild the site to allow ads and incorporate more multimedia elements. I love using web 2.0 tools including Twitter and Coveritlive, but I was a broadcasting major in college and want to grow into a quality weekly podcast.

CD: I'd like to thank Mike for this short interview and suggest all of our readers to go and check out his site, Scouting the Sally.

Acknowledgements: Videos were provided by Mike Newman at Scouting the Sally

14 January 2010

Here is a quick post today. I decided to chart out how Felix Pie fared against right handers tossing four seamed cheese. The samples was 431 fastballs with a velocity of 92.1 +/- 2.3 mph. You can tell from the graph that Felix's eyes were wide for high heat from the mid to outside part of the plate. He had strikes called on the interior and low outside as we would expect. Most of his hard hit pitches were in the center slanting outward with his range leaning outside as he steps into the pitch. Looking at the graph, for fastballs I would target Pie high and outside to punch him out. Setting him up with an inside pitch would be a good idea perhaps.

12 January 2010

To recap, we've run a shadow draft the last two Junes, noting the selection we would make were we drafting for the Orioles in their slots. Here are the results (first five rounds in 2008 and first ten rounds in 2009):

After our third pick in 2009, we made this obervation during our draft day chat:

"For the fourth time in eight rounds in the history of our Shadow Draft here at CamdenDepot.com, the San Francisco Giants make our pick exactly one pick after us (Kieschnick, Crawford, Wheeler and now Dominguez). I guess this means we're pretty close with our player valuations...I'll take it as a good sign, but still eerie."

Today, Jim Callis of Baseball America writes, "We grade every draft from 2005-08 in the new Prospect Handbook, and no team outdid San Francisco's 3.50 GPA." (link to insider article). That alone was enough to get me excited, but I was truly surprised when I went back and looked at the other organizations that selected "our" players, and BA's corresponding view of how those organizations draft. More after the jump...________________________________________________Callis had the following to say about San Francisco's selections in 2008:

"That [2008 draft class for San Francisco] could be San Francisco's best hitting crop in years, led by Buster Posey (first), third baseman Conor Gillaspie (sandwich), outfielder Roger Kieschnick (third) and shortstop Brandon Crawford (fourth) (emphasis added)."

The full comparison of our selections and how the matched against the actual drafting organizations:

Baseball America listed GPA's for each organization's drafting from 2005-2008 (link). This only relates to players signed and does not include 2009, but it gives an indication of which organizations draft well, in BA's opinion. Here's how the above orgs graded out:

So ten of our fifteen picks were made by organizations that have, from 2005-2008, earned a 3.00 or better from Baseball America when it comes to drafting and signing talent, and only one of our picks was made by an organization ranking in the bottom half by Baseball America.

This is a really quick and dirty way of looking at things, as obviously it's the pick in particular that matters, but I'm encouraged by two things. First, that so many of our picks were made in rounds close to where the player actually came off the board. This indicates to me that our valuing of the payer is fairly accurate -- we're taking players around where other teams think a player should go. Second, teams that seem to know what they are doing like a lot of the players we like. Again, it's the pick in particular that matters, but if I buy a painting and an art collector I respect states that he likes that painting as well, I'm feeling pretty good about my investment.

Once the Prospect Handbook is out, we'll take a closer look at this, as well as where our Shadow Picks rank in their current organzations.

With Aubrey Huff signing with the Giants, I can only imagine that Adam LaRoche's and Russell Branyan's agents are on hold with the Mets. Last year's DH situation is showing up again as this year's first base situation (as well as DH, by the way). Players who were expecting multiyear deals near 10MM per will not be getting what they once thought was a cinch to get. Adam LaRoche, in fact, turned down an offer of 2 years and 17MM from the Giants. I imagine that offer is now off the table with Huff, Pablo Sandoval, Mark DeRosa, and Juan Uribe in the mix for their corner positions. That leaves the Giants 5MM to spend on someone like Jon Garland.

This also leaves teams like the Orioles in a better bargaining position. Andy MacPhail has mentioned that he sees Garrett Atkins as more of a first baseman than a third baseman, but the market is void of talent at third. He has also mentioned a desire for a right handed power hitter, which the market also lacks at first base. If he is really dead set on getting another bat, it seems like it will be a buyer's market on left handed first basemen desperate for a starting slot.

A brief look at the teams and who they have spelling 1B, 3B, and DH after the jump.

Teams in need of a 1B: Orioles, Mets, Pirates, Indians, DodgersMets seem intent on signing a player. Thin money is on them resigning Carlos Delgado, but I could also see them going with Russell Branyan or Adam LaRoche. Pirates will enter the market if the money becomes tight for the position. They want more offense, but have little interest in paying for it. They probably need one more year to buffer Pedro Alvarez and can always shift Andy LaRoche to second base. The Indians have a situation where they can continue to run LaPorta out to left field, but he really is more of a first baseman. They could enter into the market similarly to the Pirates, but have less need than the Pirates. Last season, the Dodgers were irritated with James Loney's stagnant bat. He appears to have the approval of Joe Torre and money appears tight for the Dodgers with the owner's divorce hearings going on.

This leaves the Orioles who have been mentioned as having an 80MM MLB payroll budget. They currently are sitting around 65MM, so they appear to have money to spend. Bedard, a LOOGY, and a free agent 1B would probably fill most of that up.

09 January 2010

Roch notes that a comment supposedly came from one of the founders of the DPL. As you may remember we were somewhat concerned by Brian Mejia's response that the Orioles were one of the teams that had not shown interest in scouting the players in the upstart Dominican league. It does not appear that Roch called back to verify the commentator's identity, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He is what Mejia wrote:

This whole DPL and O's presences was blown out of proportion. I was asked a question by ESPN reporter and gave a simple answer. It's not like the O's don't scout, evaluate and sign players in DR. The question was asked, "how many teams are consistently evaluating players at the DPL games". I gave him a simple answer.

The O's have many other things to worry about than being at all 25 DPL games. They do what they do and sign who they like... Budget, sign ability, need and roster spots all come into play when making signing decision in DR. The DR is small but players are everywhere, I'm sure they are doing their due diligence, I'm also sure everyone in BAL FO wants to win asap, any opportunity they have to sign the right guy they will do it.

It is probably fair to say that the one small comment that what interesting to us in the ESPN article may not have been explored to the degree needed to properly assess the Orioles' involvement in acquiring amateur talent. Reading maybe more than I should into this response, it seems the mention of the Orioles having other things to worry about is another validation of the idea that our scouting resources are not very great in the DR. Players may indeed be everywhere, but it seems that the DPL might be something to be more involved with. Anyway, I imagine Mejia is somewhat upset that his off hand comments about the Orioles' involvement in his league took such a negative turn.

I'm tackling Part 2, stepping through the Top 3 Under-26 First Basemen in the AL East. There's a large drop-off between number one and the rest of the list, with new-to-the-division prospect Brett Wallace easily the most talented of the bunch.

Dating back to his time at Arizona St., Wallace has been labeled a not-long-for-3B guy, mostly due to his bottom-heavy build and limited range at the hot corner. 2010 may finally see his full-time switch over to first, a transition started by the Oakland Athletics at the end of last year. The good news for Jays fans is that Wallace's bat easily plays across the diamond.

Wallace's biggest asset is his advanced approach, which includes a solid understanding of the strikezone and above-average pitch-ID for a player his age. Though he can add some length to his swing at times, his bat speed and pitch-ID more than make up for this by allowing him to be selectively aggressive in the pitches he attacks. He should be up in 2010 and is an excellent candidate to hit right away. One item he may need to clean-up is the variance in his timing mechanism -- a leg raise into his stride -- which adds some inconsistency to the start of his swing.

After posting slash lines of .315/.358/.490 at A-Adv./Frederick in 2008, .343/.421/.597 through 58 games at AA/Bowie in 2009, and .354/.456/.600 in the 2009 Arizona Fall League, Snyder appears to have finally won over the scouting community, with Baseball America now projecting him as a Major League regular. Snyder shows an uncanny ability to center the ball on the barrel and hit it hard, as evidenced in part by his routinely high BABIP (averaging over .350 over 1085 ABs between the start of the 2007 season and his promotion to AAA/Norfolk in 2009). He has little loft in his swing, keeping close to the plane of the pitch (which also aides his ability to make contact), and profiles more gap-to-gap than as a homerun threat.

Snyder's largest looming hurdle appears to be consistency. He's an aggressive hitter that puts a lot of balls in play, making him highly reliant on sustaining a high BABIP. It's likely that Snyder will see a fair amount of variance in his seasonal stat lines at the Major League level -- similar to the career path of Sean Casey (who has unsurprisingly become a regular comp in scouting circles), leading to two possible outcomes. If Snyder is able to reign-in his discipline some he could profile as a solid number-2 hitter with plus contact skills. If, however, his aggressive approach leads to too much "bad" contact (difficult pitches to drive) he may top out as a 6/7 hitter whose production is too inconsistent to slot into the top half of the order. In spite of the slash stats above, Snyder had a rough go at it in his first taste of AAA, and will likely find himself back in Norfolk in 2010 until he forces his way onto the 25-man roster. Lauded by his coaches for his work ethic and enthusiasm, he could prove to be a pleasant surprise for Orioles fans who counted him out after shoulder surgery moved him from behind the plate back in 2006.

Like Wallace and Snyder, Cooper profiles better as a pure hitter than he does as a thumper. After a strong 2008, Cooper ran into some trouble with advanced pitching in 2009, opening the season with a rough April/May that saw him post a .659 and .692 OPS, respectively. As the season wore on, Cooper appeared to make the necessary adjustments in his approach, culminating in a strong August showing wherein he put up a .284/.408/.490 line over 102 at bats, while walking more than he fanned (21-19). A below-average defender at Cal - Berkley, reports on Cooper's defense have been equally unspectacular at the pro ranks. His most likely point of entry could be DH, and he could arrive sometime in 2010, shortly after Wallace.

At this time last year, Anderson was coming off a strong season at age 20 spent between A-Adv./Lancaster and AA/Portland and would have been the unmitigated favorite for this list. Flash forward 12-months and a disappointing 512 plate appearances at AA/Portland and Red Sox Nation is left wondering if their system's top power prospect may have stalled-out. Anderson still carries with him the plus raw power and a solid approach that lead many to peg him as Boston's 1B and middle-of-the-order-bat of the future. He'll start 2010 back at Portland and try to right the ship.

Anthony Rizzo (Boston Red Sox) was also considered for this spot. As impressive as his age 19 season was between A/Greenville and A-Adv./Salem, Anderson was more impressive at the same age, as well as the following season in his first taste of AA before suffering his setback in '09.

07 January 2010

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Yesterday we commented on an article by ESPN's Jorge Arangure Jr. about the upstart Dominican Prospect League. The league is producing about a 10% signing rate according to the agents who run it and those bonuses are reportedly in the high five figures and low six figures. This suggests that there are low and mid tier prospects here. As Stotle mentioned yesterday, "Some teams have found some "overlooked" value, as Arangure reports further that seven players not signed this past summer have now been inked to mid-five to low-six figure deals. The main takeaway seems to be that the League may not cover all the bases on the Dominican scouting field, but it's a great place to get a look at good talent, particularly for organizations that aren't well-established in the Dominican Republic as of yet."

What was troubling was what Arangure Jr. specifically wrote about the Orioles.

Also, though most teams' scouts have shown up regularly for games, Mejia notes that some teams -- like the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles [emphasis mine] -- still have not had a regular presence at games.

After the jump, Jorge replies via twitter and Roch writes a column this morning about the article with quotes from John Stockstill.

After reading the article in full, I was actually somewhat concerned about the Orioles involvement. Resources (i.e. money, personnel) have been reported to being obviously short. For a team who operates with two full time scouts (as compared to Boston who uses fourteen) such a venue would appear to present ample opportunity to not only see these players without dealing with local buscons, but also being able to see these players in real game situations. It sounds like a great resource that the Orioles are not taking advantage of.

This lead to this brief exchange with Jorge:

@jorgearangure Are you surprised by the Orioles' lack of presence at the DPL games?

@CamdenDepot i wouldn't read too much into it. the league is barely getting started. they'll probably increase their presence at some point.

By nature of the medium tweets are rather compact in the amount of information that can be transmitted. This answer, to me, suggests that the Orioles are not seeking out new ventures until they become more established. As in, they may not wish to use resources, however minimal, on events that may be of little consequence to them. That players have been signed from this league appears to contradict that. That other Latin American Scouting directors have made a point to personally attend games also appears to contradict that. From the outside, it looks like this league actually has a good deal of consequence with regard to low and mid tier players who have been overlooked. For a club who seems unable to afford much in terms of looking, this still seems like a poor move.

So, anyway, Stotle, myself, a few others seem to have asked Roch Kobatko to take a look into it and this morning he posted an article about the league. He interviewed John Stockstill, the Orioles international director of scouting.

"We do have people reporting to us," Stockstill said.

Stockstill also pointed out that many of these players are showcased at other events. "And many of them have probably been at our facility and our camp," he said. "And that's not just Baltimore. That's probably a lot of other clubs, as well."

In other words, the Orioles aren't depending only on this prospect league to evaluate the talent over there. On any given day, you might have 20 workouts taking place at various complexes.

Furthermore, he reports that the Orioles have undergone a significant shift in who is scouting for them. These individuals may not be immediately associated with the Orioles. That still leaves it somewhat strange that their presence has not been entirely made clear to the agents who would be the ones who are likely to make a buck of this thing, but I am not an expert at how this league or these kind of league work with regard to scout interaction with agents. I figured there would be a decent amount of flesh pressing and shooting the breeze just to establish connections that may be of use later.

In the end, I think this is just something to take note of and store in the back of your head. Based on the Sun's article a few days back, it appears the Orioles are heading in the right direction at the pace of a tortoise. Our international presence is rather small, but we are being noticed. For instance, our presence was clearly involved in a major prospect this year (Miguel Jean) and that has never been the case before. It appears we are making a movement forward. Still, I question why individuals running a league do not remember or recognize the Orioles presence at these games.

After writing a piece on an international draft, I figure there were some aspects of it that need more exploration. This multipart series will reintroduce what Type A or B compensation means as well as how to implement compensation into this new draft system I propose. Part I will reacquaint you with what this compensation means.

As it stands now, the loss of a type A or B free agent results in compensation in the form of draft picks. For a type A free agent this means that the former team of the player receives a sandwich round pick between the first and second rounds according to the Elias rating (higher ranking free agents result in a higher draft pick during this round) as well as the new team's first unprotected draft pick. This translates to the second half of the first round (first half picks are protected) or the first half of the second round. Further complicating this approach is that if one team signs two type A free agents, the team who gave up the higher rate free agent would be the one who secures the higher pick. The second team then winds up with the next unprotected pick. An example would be last year when the Yankees signed CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Teixeira. The Yankees gave their 1st round selection to the Angels for Teixeira (98.889 rating), their 2nd round pick to the Brewers for Sabathia (98.110 rating), and their 3rd round pick to the Blue Jays for AJ Burnett (89.729 rating). It should be noted that although original round 1 to 3 picks are protected for one year, compensatory picks are not. If a team fails to sign a player with a compensatory pick, they do not receive a replacement in the following year's draft.

After the jump, we will more greatly characterize how Type A and B status is determined.

After the conclusion of each season, Elias Sports Bureau uses a somewhat secret formula to determine a rating of every player in baseball . . . not just the free agents. A type A player is considered to be a free agent who has performed in the top fifth of baseball over the past two years. A type B player is considered to be a free agent who has performed in the second fifth of baseball over the course of the previous two years. Former teams who lose players beneath the 60th percentile will not receive compensation.

So are there restrictions on compensation?Yes, compensation is in effect until the first week in December when there is a deadline for the former team to offer arbitration. Compensatory terms remain in effect if the team offers arbitration and the player declines.

How are players rated?First, players are divided by position. The groupings are as follows:Group 1: 1B, OF, and DHGroup 2: 2B, 3B, and SSGroup 3: CGroup 4: SPGroup 5: RP

As you can imagine, this system is needed in terms of granting compensation for lost players for small market teams, but the manner in which they do this is rather poor. In the next part of this series, I will discuss a revamped approach that will fit into the proposed system of slotting I made earlier.

06 January 2010

ESPN Jorge Arangure Jr. posted an update on the Dominican Prospect League in his blog, today (link for ESPN Insiders). To catch everyone up, the Dominican Prospect League was put together by three agents to help showcase some young and talented ballplayers from the Dominican Republic. The idea was to provide a central location and game situations wherein players could perform for scouts against good competition. Essentially, make the scout's life easier by putting good talent on display in game situations and make the player's life easier by giving him a chance to be seen by a bunch of Major League Organizations.

Troubling Baltimore news as the story continues after the jump...The league has some questions surrounding it, including whether the cream of the crop will consistently show and how much the buscons might affect the league by trying to force playing time for certain players. But generally, the league seems to be very well received (quote from Arangure's linked piece):

"The league has allowed me to see the supposed top players for this year's signing period in game action," wrote Reds Latin American scouting director Tony Arias in an email. "Time will tell if all the top kids participated in the DPL. I think most Latin Scouting Directors have made it a point to see the DPL games when they are in the Dominican on Wednesdays. It has been beneficial to both the kids and teams in the scouting process in allowing all teams access to scout the kids playing in games amongst their peers. I hope they continue to have harmony and success with this venture as I think it benefits all the people involved with baseball in the Dominican."

Some teams have found some "overlooked" value, as Arangure reports further that seven players not signed this past summer have now been inked to mid-five to low-six figure deals. The main takeaway seems to be that the League may not cover all the bases on the Dominican scouting field, but it's a great place to get a look at good talent, particularly for organizations that aren't well-established in the Dominican Republic as of yet.

Unfortunately, according to Arangure's latest report, Baltimore has not been an active participant:

"Also, though most teams' scouts have shown up regularly for games, Mejia notes that some teams -- like the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles -- still have not had a regular presence at games."

We all know it takes time to make inroads in Latin America. You need to develop relationships with the buscons and earn some trust and a level of comfort with the communities. But how can an organization so dreadfully lacking on the international scene not take advantage of an opportunity like this? Provided there isn't much more to this story, this looks like another missed opportunity for the Orioles, and another inexcusable failure on the international front.

On Monday we penned our introduction to the series. Today, MJ kicks off our series with a look at the Top 3 Under-26 Catchers in the AL East. Not surprisingly, baseball's most highly-touted prospect of 2009 tops the list. The full list with brief write-ups after the jump...1. Matt Wieters / Baltimore Orioles (MLB) Height/Weight - 6-5/230 / Born - 5/21/1986 / Bats/Throws - B/RStats - Fangraphs / Baseball-Reference / MinorLeagueSplits

Considered not only the top catching prospect in the division but also the best prospect overall according to Baseball America’s top-100 ranking for the 2009 season, Wieters is the rare combination of offensive and defensive prowess at a position known for players possessing one trait or the other but rarely both.

After a relatively slow transition to the big leagues following his promotion from AAA-Norfolk, Wieters came into his own once the calendar flipped to September, posting a .333/.395/.486 line to finish the year, as compared to his .267/.314/.379 slash stats from May-August. In 738.1 defensive innings, Wieters committed five errors, including three passed balls and only threw out 21 of 86 attempted base-stealers (24%) but gradually grew into his role as the team’s everyday catcher. As scouts have raved about his makeup, advanced knowledge of the strike zone and smooth catching skills (despite his atypical size for a catcher), Wieters profiles as a future All-Star behind the dish for years to come.

As with Wieters, Montero is considered a very advanced offensive prospect, garnering comparisons to some of the game’s best sluggers and drawing raves for his natural power and ability to square up on the baseball. Some scouts have even graded him as an 80 on the 20-80 scale for hitting and power. After destroying advanced A-level ball to the tune of .356/.406/.583, Montero was well on his way to similarly dominating AA pitching (.317/.370/.539) before breaking his middle finger and being shelved for the remainder of the season.

Unlike Wieters, however, Montero’s future as a catcher is in doubt. Whereas some scouts project him as a poor defensive catcher with a ceiling of Mike Piazza’s skills behind the plate, others believe that the Yankees are prolonging the inevitable and that Montero will indeed either man first base or be a full-time DH upon reaching the big leagues. Scouts cite a lack of natural athleticism and poor footwork behind the plate, and, despite a strong throwing arm, nearly all those who have watched Montero behind the plate feel that he is no better than a below average defensive prospect.

With Montero’s promotion to AAA after only 167 at-bats at AA, his former platoon-mate Austin Romine will be granted the full-time catching duties at AA-Trenton in 2010. Romine is considered an all-around catching prospect with above-average raw power and solidly above-average skills behind home plate, including a strong and accurate arm. Additionally, Romine is viewed as a good athlete with fair speed for a catcher, evidenced by his 11 steals (out of 16 chances). The 2009 Florida State Player of the Year,Romine – and not Montero – appears to be the heir apparent to Jorge Posada as the everyday catcher of the future for the New York Yankees.

Navarro makes this list as much by virtue of his birth date as for the fact that he has crafted a five year career as a catcher at the major league level. Although his skills and stats translate to a roughly average performer at the position, it is nonetheless reason enough to recognize Navarro as one of the division’s best catchers aged 26 and younger.

Travis d’Arnaud (Toronto Blue Jays) was also considered for this spot but Navarro was given preference based on his established major league track record, especially in contrast with d’Arnaud’s 2010 season likely opening at A-Adv. Dunedin.

05 January 2010

Matt Hobgood discusses, at reasonable length, about the difficulties he faced after being drafted by the Orioles. He has been quite focused at API and has lost 8 pounds and reduced his percent body fat by 3% in a month. He hopes to come into spring training at 240lbs to quiet anyone about his conditioning.

Here is a short response about his troubles at Bluefield:

It took me a little over a month just to get back to feeling where I could actually throw good, and even then, I think I topped the whole year at Bluefield at like 91. I was trying to throw hard, but I wasn’t trying to look like I was throwing hard, if you know what I mean. I talked to (Orioles scouting director) Joe Jordan a little bit. He came down and he said somebody asked him why high school pitchers loose velocity as rookies. Joe said it’s just different. We’re not used to throwing every day.

04 January 2010

With the Yankees and Red Sox running out front in the AL East for much of the aughts, the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays gave baseball a glimpse into the type of team that will ultimately need to be assembled in order to run with the deeper pockets in the division. Acquiring and developing young, inexpensive talent carries two primary benefits for the non-Yanks/Sox of the division:

1. Defends against the "big contract" injury/busts that can potentially tie-up payroll for a year or more. By adding as much talent as possible while keeping the payroll as low as possible, Tampa, Baltimore and Toronto will give themselves the flexibility to address an injury or bust via trade/free agency, rather than being forced to rush a prospect or, worse, do nothing.

2. Keeps payroll available for selectively aggressive moves in the free agent/trade markets/extension of homegrown talent. By assembling as talented a team as possible while leaving as much capital available as possible, the option hopefully exists to make a run at a more expensive free agent when the potential wins added by that free agent/expensive trade target, or locking-up one of the homegrown talents for a period of years, are relevant to making a playoff run (preferably for an extended period of time).

It remains to be seen how effective Baltimore, Tampa and Toronto will be in executing, but this is likely the best approach to competing with Boston and New York in the standings and, in selected situations, in the free agent and trade market.

So where do each of the AL East teams rank in current under-26 year old talent (a quick and dirty cut-off for gauging "young and cheap" talent)? After the jump we'll step through the criteria we've used for our position-by-position nine-part series. In this pivotal cross-section of talent acquisition and development, which AL East team is best situating themselves....Subject: The goal of the series is two-fold:

1. To find the best young players at each position in the AL East talent structure, and

2. To get an idea of where the AL East teams stack-up, overall, with regards to young talent in the pipeline.

Parameters: In order to qualify, a player must satisfy the following requirements:

1. The player must be 26 or younger during the 2010 season (born October 1, 1983 to present), and

2. The player must currently be under the control of an AL East organization (the player can be at any level in the organization).

Discussion: The bulk of the pieces will be prepared by myself (Stotle) and by MJ. MJ comes to us by way of the New York Yankees fan base and has contributed as a writer for the popular Yankees site www.waswatching.com. As is the case with Crawdaddy and myself, he follows the AL East closely and should provide good balance to the pieces. The two of us, along with Craw, will be selecting the top players for each position. The author of the piece will be responsible for the ultimate ranking of the players. We hope you'll add your thoughts in the comment section of each piece, as well.

We'll keep a running count of the Top Under-26 Team at the conclusion of each piece, and Craw, MJ and I will put together a "wrap-up" piece briefly discussing our findings.

This is quite an exciting endeavor for the three of us. We hope that even if you disagree with our rankings, our series will trigger some discussion amongst the various fan bases. Part 1: Catchers, is being finalized by MJ now and will post on Wednesday. Craw will be putting-up something fun and interesting in the interim.

03 January 2010

Weekend editions are usually a good time to look back on the previous week. So, here are some Orioles focused quotes from the most recent Joe Sheehan chat:

[Mike Gonzalez' deal is] a very inexpensive contract, and the Orioles' bullpen has sucked for a while, so I don't hate the deal. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than signing Garret Atkins, who is 1) not very good and 2) redundant even at his potential skill set and role because of Ty Wigginton. Gonzalez can at least do something.

This echoes my sentiment. Gonzalez is a roughly average to below average deal. It is one that does not seem to make most of having the 3rd pick in the second round, but the value lost there is not great. The Garrett Atkins deal is a headscratcher and only makes sense in take the alternative is atrocious and he has some upside. Of course, sending Scott Moore out there and banking Miguel (Angel Sano) Jean with the difference would have been a better move in my opinion.

My ranking of GMs in the AL and some other Sheehan quotes after the jump.

Crawdaddy's list of best GMs in baseball:1. Theo Epstein, Boston Red Sox - Best run program in the game. Domestic/International talent acquisition is stellar and free agents pickups are largely successful (outside of SS).2. Bill Beane, Oakland Athletics - Slightly shaky lately and somewhat overrated . . . still the Gold Standard. Set with a misguided run last season, he was able to turn around and replenish his minors.3. Jack Zduriencik, Seattle Mariners - Nearly every move he has made has been a steal. He wound up with Cliff Lee for less than the Yanks gave for Vazquez.4. Andrew Freidman, Tampa Bay Rays - Competing in the AL East with a slim payroll and having arguably the best Minor League talent pool in the game.5. Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers - Has turned things around greatly in the past couple years. He used to be rather awful. Great minors and solid MLB moves.6. Dave Dombrowski, Detroit Tigers - Great turnover in the system, but he acquires top amateur talent and has made a few excellent trades (although somewhat blemished--Dontrelle Willis).7. Brian Cashman, New York Yankees - He is difficult to evaluate, but Cashman's tenure has been much smoother since he was given more of a free reign to go after younger players. Money certainly helps though and they do not seem to embrace progressiveness like the BoSox.8. Andy MacPhail, Baltimore Orioles - He has shown a lot of patience in getting generally solid returns in trades (Bedard and Sherrill deals) and an emerging proliferation of minor league talent. Free agent acquisitions do not seem incredibly shrewd and the team missed out on trading some of their players at the right time.9. Mark Shapiro, Cleveland Indians - This might be too low for Shapiro. Solid assessment of high round minor league talent and young positional players. Poor drafting (to be kind) and a near complete lack of evaluating pitching. Kerry Wood acquisition was expensive for the team and did not address starting pitching.10. Kenny Williams, Chicago White Sox - Williams is a gambler who seems to make moves using his gut much more than his head. When he had a set of supernaturally healthy and good starters . . . it worked. He has had trouble getting back to that. The Peavy and Rios deals could set this team well. The Teahan deal is perplexing. The outfield is often peculiarly addressed. Has the feeling of a rotisserie team.11. Bill Smith, Minnesota Twins - This will probably be a rather controversial placement. Smith though has been underachieving for years. His Santana deal paled in comparison to what the Erik Bedard deal was. Solutions to add offense to the squad were met with continual bouts of failure. MLB level moves look quite poor. The team excels with its amateur scouting. I am unsure how much Smith is involved with that.12. Tony Reagins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - They have not done much to replace the massive amount of talent they had. This includes at an amateur levels and at a pro level. Also seems to have a tendency to hold onto prospects for too long. Not much was gained from Tex's departure.13. Alex Anthopoulos, Toronto Blue Jays - Not much to grade him on, but the Jays did seem to get value closer to what the O's got for Bedard than what the Twins got for Santana. So he easily rates above the fourteenth selection whom I am at a loss to name a single good move.14. Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals - Two words: The Process.

[One of the three worst moves of the offseason is the signing of] Garret Atkins, because the Orioles already had a fat, slow, pseudo-corner-guy with a huge platoon split who hits into lots of DPs.

02 January 2010

When I did my personal list, I rated the Orioles as the eighth-best farm system, which is quite impressive considering that Wieters, Tillman and Reimold graduated to the majors in 2009.

Tillman, easily [has the better career]. And I like Arrieta.

I ranked [the Nationals] 20th, in large part because of Strasburg. If you took him out of the mix, I would have rated their system 27th.

I'd give Pie another shot [at being a starter and have Reimold DH] but I don't have much faith that [Pie starting] will work out.

[Orioles drafted Matt Hobgood because he would sign for slot].

What I found most interesting was that he rated the Rays (2nd) and the BoSox (7th) above the Orioles (8th). That means the AL East has a very talented minor league system. Life will not be easy for the O's.

31 December 2009

Tracy Ringolsgy wears a cowbot hat. Rongolsby also writes for Fox Sports. He wrote today that the Baltimore Orioles had extended an 8 year offer to Matt Holliday to the tune of 130MM. That is an annual average of 16.25MM. An eight year deal will also take Holliday through his age 37 season. Andy MacPhail has offered to get together with him and Peter Angelos in Austin where Holliday lives. Roch says MacPhail denied the offer was ever presented.

The alleged offer consists of a rather lengthy contract. Based on his age and position, he projects to roughly 26 wins above replacement over that eight year period. Assuming an increase of 10% increase in the cost per win and that this year's value is 4MM/win, Holliday is worth 137MM over those eight years. More pessimistic projections see his value as closer to 124MM over eight years with those last two seasons rating him as severely below average. In truth, it is difficult to find any projection that is optimistic over years 7 and 8.

Although I am not a great fan of this supposed proposed offer, I can understand why it would make sense. More after the jump.Some points:

1. We have excess outfielders, why do we need to purchase a left fielder?By signing Holliday, it leaves a glut of outfielders with Felix Pie, Nolan Reimold, and Luke Scott. Such as situation would enable the team to engage in a trade to move talent around. Players like Pie and Reimold (to a lesser extent Scott) present plus value for other teams with payroll restrictions due to their status under the CBA as renewal year players. Signing Holliday could mean a redistribution of talent from Reimold to Blanks at first.

2. Holliday is on the wrong side of 30, how does that fit?Players with a high contact rate, decent walk rate, some speed, and power age better than others. What is more worrisome is the athlete who relies many on one or two skills. His bat should age rather well and his defense should remain passable in left field for several seasons. He figures to age much better than Jason Bay.

3. What about the Coors split?Much concern over Holliday is his home/road splits attributed largely to the Coors effect. While this was a concern last off season, it may not be as much of one this off season. He exhibited another extreme home/road split this year with Oakland and St. Louis (OPS; 982 vs 830). This may just be his performance characterization. He hits well at home. With Camden Yards as one of the top three homerun hitting environments in the Majors, he stands to do well with his high contact rate and power. He should hit well as an Oriole.

4. So what do I have against this trade?This sort of contract ensures a nearly worthless player on the team for two seasons down the road. That restricts a team's roster in sunk cost and potentially a sunk 25 man roster slot. Such a signing also means that about 15% of the team's possible budget will be tied to a left fielder who skills are decreasing each year instead of getting better while all the players around him are excelling. Such a signing means that we are ignoring the plus value available from the left field slot that we currently have and hoping to find that elsewhere in the lineup or needing to overpay more to fill positions. It also means we are paying a premium on a position that is of little consequence this season.

I can understand why a Holliday signing makes sense, but I would not suggest it. I think it would do more to limit roster and payroll flexibility down the line in a way that is not essential for the future success of the team.

29 December 2009

A short announcement today . . . we have been running the 40 man roster with options denoted by a color code in a running column to the left side of this page. This column runs on every page within this blog. We figured that since we often consult this list we figured out on our own . . . you may wish to do the same. Anyway, feel free to consult it and let me know if there is ever anything I miss.

28 December 2009

It seems a major issue Bud Selig wants to address before he retires as the commissioner is to equalize the playing field with respect to amateur acquisitions. Apparently, his concept of fixing disparity between franchises is to fix perhaps the one area where small market teams actually can compete. So lets just go for the ride and find a system that can actually work.

Based on current work of Stark, the New York Times, and the Biz of Baseball . . . I think it is safe to assume revenue sharing in general comes to at least 500MM. With that in mind, I think it would be easy to isolate about 300MM of that to amateur talent acquisition. The main step is to abolish the draft and set up annual salary shares.

I'll explain after the jump.

The draft is largely a tool to force talent to sign with certain teams and restrict their earning potential. These two issues would be a stopping point for many Japanese players looking to play state-side. To resolve this, I propose that the draft be abolished and instead teams are allotted fixed salary points based on the reverse order of their records for the previous season.

For instance (CLICK PICTURE TO MAKE LARGER):

You can see for this plan each team will be able to sign 100 players each season. This is enough to fill two Rookie league teams, a Dominican Summer league team, and provide a few guys for short season ball. It also provides several high paying positions and there are at least two teams who have contract shares of the same amount. Some may argue that the bonuses in question here are on average much greater than what is doled out in the draft and international free agent market. That is true. A rough estimate on what is currently spent on bonuses is around 240MM. This throws in another 55MM, which will help raise domestic player bonuses, which have been unfairly discounted in the current restrictive market. Another plus for players is that this system gives them choices. Even single shares, even the 10MM one, has at least two teams capable of offering it. This enables choices to be made and a better idea of what is available. It should also result in players quickly signing on as neither side has much room to haggle. The prices are effectively set.

How does this benefit the owners? It establishes a system that is ultimately fare for revenue sharing and should not greatly impede the local markets in Latin America. One issue of concern is that an international draft would collapse the baseball talent streams in areas like the Dominican Republic. In these areas, part of the local economy are buscons who develop children at a very young age and move them into position to sign with big league clubs. Finding fees are associated with these dealings. A run of the mill draft with no leveraging between teams would nip that in the bud as there would be less incentive for an MLB team to invest in these regions. Keeping them free agents with set contracts enables this to continue and MLB continues to get their talent pool stream.

But does this system benefit a player like Dice-K or Hideki Matsui? No, not in this form. Under such a plan, these players would wind up receiving a 10MM bonus and then be forced under the renewal/arbitration system. This would need to be adjusted and a potentially easy solution would be to set aside an additional 20MM in revenue sharing. This money would be used for a pay for play system similar to what is instituted in the NFL. Basically, during the renewal years players will receive a certain point total for plate appearances or innings pitches. The quality of those innings or plate appearances are not considered, just how often a person actually player. This results in a final point total. Add up all of the players that fall under this classification of renewal year talent. Divide 20MM, but that number to determine a price per point value. Players then are paid on how many points they have accumulated.

24 December 2009

Chris Lamb (19 years old) was signed a couple weeks ago by the Orioles. He was also being courted by the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs. He posted up good numbers in a mid level Australian league, going 2-1 with a 3.03era. He had a K rate of 14.8 per 9 innings, but also walked 10 per 9. The talent level here is more on par with Bluefield. He was promoted to a league that was on par with Delmarva (single A) and appeared to be overmatched. He struck out about one per inning, but walked about 12 per 9. Baseball is somewhat relaxed over in Australia, so hopefully a more regimented scheduled can improves his conditioning.

Jones relates the Aussie team's assistant GM's comments on Lamb:

He's a skinny kid with a live arm and room to add 10-15 pounds of muscle as he fills out. At times he can get erratic and lose the strike zone, but he also has the ability to get hitters to swing and miss. The coaching staff has been working with him on his release point and repeating his delivery. With consistent work in the [United] States he will have a much better opportunity to refine his mechanics. He currently throws his fastball with late sinking action at 88-90 mph and has topped out at 93. His secondary pitches are a real good curveball that drops off the table and a changeup that he is still developing. The coaches have taught him a cutter that he has started to implement into games as well.

As I had mentioned somewhere, he is seen as a potential LOOGY.

Predicted Wins for the 2010 Season Post-Millwood, Atkins, Gonzalez.

The current projected win totals have been posted by Dempsey's Army, Camden Crazies, and us here at Camden Depot. The win totals are as follows:Dempsey's Army - 83 winsCamden Crazies - 76 winsCamden Depot - 77 wins

23 December 2009

A week ago Roch Kobatko wrote up his interview with John Stockstill, the Orioles' director of international scouting. He had been present at Aroldis Chapman's workout and communicated that representatives from over 20 teams were present for the workout. It appeared the workout was a sort of resetting the clock with his new agents. The goal being that they wanted to show that Chapman was healthy, in shape, and ready to take his professional career very seriously. At the moment, we are aware that the Red Sox offered 15.5MM several weeks ago and that the Marlins are currently sitting on a 12-13MM bonus offer. Conventional wisdom is that either the Yankees or BoSox will wind up winning his services.

An evaluation of his worth as a prospect and a collection of scouting reports after the jump.Chapman has played the last four years in Cuba top league. This is a league that has 16 teams while Cuba has a population of roughly 12MM. The competition just is not that strong. I have included in with the stat line an expected MLE that is based on a composite of A ball translations to the pro game. Admittedly, this is a large assumption, but I think it gives a ball park idea about his performance and what level of competition he has faced.

We have Pitch f/x data from his WBC game last spring. It is only one outing, but it does present a decent idea as to where his fastball velocity works. He was able to must pitches at 100 and 102 mph, but his working velocity was 93.5mph. Velocity does not exactly match up with performance, but there does seem to be an indication that increased velocity makes a fastball better (of course). The following charts compares average fastball velocity of the top 33 fastballs in the game from starting pitchers, starting with Ubaldo Jimenez and ending with Luke Hochevar. No attempt was made to look at movement or location, just velocity.

Using the equation presented in the chart from MLB quality pitchers. Chapman's fastball velocity was 93.5mph and his projected runs value would be 0.12 runs saved per 100 fastballs. That means it is an above average pitch is about 10.8% above average for this population of starters. If you prefer BtBS's estimate of 94.6mph after weeding out incorrectly defined pitches, then you are looking at 0.52 runs saved per 100 fastballs or 38% better than the average fastball. A major assumption here (on top of all of the other assumptions) is that pitchers will more of a track record are having their pitches properly identified. Regardless, Chapman throws hard. Throwing hard is good. It remains to be seen if he has or will have Major league quality control. I assume many hard throwers are weeded out.

Fastball – Chapman’s fastball is typically clocked in the 93 – 96 range and will occasionally touch 97 – 99. The pitch has tremendous life and carry through the zone with some natural tail. Chapman’s control will vary from start-to-start. On average, his control of the pitch is decent and will often be at least around the strike zone. But commanding the pitch is a different story. Pitching to a right handed hitter, the catcher’s mitt might be positioned on the inside corner and Chapman’s ball will often end up right down the middle.

Curveball – A good change of pace offering with a solid two-plane brake. However, Chapman will sometimes slow his arm down when throwing the pitch. It’s clocked as low as 69 mph, getting as high as 75.

Slider – Chapman’s most effective off-speed offering…I’ve heard the pitch can hit 90, but I’ve only seen it come close to that mark once and I’m still not sure the pitch was a slider. I’ve typically seen his slider in the 79 – 83 range. The pitch has major consistency issues and can rate anywhere from below average to plus.

Change-Up and Cutter – Chapman possesses both a cutter and change-up, neither of which he uses often.

Chapman’s release point is inconsistent and it will vary with each pitch type . . . Chapman has to coordinate a lot of moving parts however, and that will naturally lead to an inability to consistently repeat his mechanics though he has the athleticism to do so.

I think it is a fair assessment that Aroldis Chapman would immediately be a top 50 prospect with his big arm, promising secondary pitches, and for being a southpaw. Using Victor Wang's probability model for assessing prospect worth, he will generate roughly 15-16MM in terms of production. I would argue that having his type of fastball puts him in a higher class and his value should be more around 18-20MM. Velocity transfers better to higher competition than pitchability.

ConclusionIf the Orioles signed Chapman, he would immediately become their second or third best prospect behind Matusz and potentially Arrieta/Britton/Bell depending on your perspective. He would probably start in HiA Frederick though a few games at Delmarva is not entirely out of the question. He will probably be in the majors within 3 years. His upside as a top end starter and low end projection as a middle reliever makes the investment of around 20MM quite fitting.

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Contributors

Jon Shepherd - founder@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

Matt Kremnitzer - editor@mattkremnitzerMatt joined Camden Depot before the 2013 season. He previously wrote about the Orioles and D.C. sports at Krem's Sports.

Nate Delong - writer, assistant editor@OriolesPGNate created and wrote for Orioles Proving Ground prior to joining Camden Depot in the middle of 2013. His baseball resume includes working as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions and as a Video Intern for the Baltimore Orioles. His actual resume is much less interesting.

Matt Perez - writerMatt joined Camden Depot after the 2013 season. He is a data analyst/programmer in his day job and uses those skills to write about the Orioles and other baseball related topics.

Joe Reisel - writerJoe has followed the Norfolk Tides now for 20 seasons. He currently serves as a Tides GameDay datacaster for milb.com and as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). He is computer programmer/analyst by day.

Ryan Romano - writer@triple_r_Ryan writes about the Orioles on Camden Depot and about all baseball at Beyond the Box Score. He previously wrote on Birds Watcher and on Camden Chat that one time.